Billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will be the new kid on the block during Wednesday's Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, but don't expect his fellow candidates to treat him gently.
In the lead up to the debate, the other five candidates who qualified — former Vice President Joe BIden, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — have decried Bloomberg's presence on the stage, providing a glimpse of what they'll likely focus on during the debate itself.
Warren on Tuesday called Bloomberg an "egomaniac billionaire" and said he'll serve as a stand-in for President Trump, while Klobuchar previously said it will give her a chance to show that while she can't outspend Bloomberg, she can out-debate him.
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A senior Biden campaign official said the vice president is planning to zero in on the recent controversies that have sprouted up around Bloomberg, including accusations of sexism and racism. "Mayor Bloomberg is profoundly unvetted," the official said, per The Hill. "Story after story has come out and the sheer volume of these stories is disturbing."
Buttigieg also gave a preview about what he may try to hit Bloomberg with. "What does it say about our politics today that somebody can skip a year of campaigning, put hundreds of millions of dollars into the campaign, and buy a place in the presidential election," he told MSNBC on Wednesday. Tim O'Donnell
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